Trogon Photo Tours

January 2019 - This month's newsletter is about photographing Blue-footed Boobies in the Galapagos Islands.  It includes information about locations, techniques and settings for photographing these amazing birds. 

Blue-footed Booby photographed November 2011 at Bachas Beach, Santa Cruz Island Galapagos.  Nikon D7000, Sigma 150-500 at 500mm 1/1000 F11, iso 400, Av mode, pattern metering -0.7, handheld.  This is my favorite close up of this species, it is almost full frame.  The image was taken at Bachas Beach which is a very good location for bird photography on the north coast of Santa Cruz Island.  It has to be visited on a cruise or on a day trip (during which it is combined with a trip to North Seymour Island).  This is always a trip we can take on our Galapagos photo tours.  I stopped down to F11 in order to get all of the plumage sharp from head to the feathers it was preening on its back. 

Blue-footed Booby photographed January 2015, Bachas Beach, Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos.  Nikon D7000, Sigma 150-500 at 270mm, 1/2000 F9, iso 640, Av mode, -1.7 pattern metering, handheld.  This is another shot from Bachas Beach, on this day we were treated to a squadron of boobies diving into the water right off the beach.  So a few of us got into the warm water and shot them as they dove and hunted for fish. As far as the settings this Nikon D7000, tended to overexpose especially in the sun, so despite the large negative exposure bias, the exposure was about right in camera.  I haven't found any current cameras that have that need to be adjusted to around -1.0 as a baseline. 

Blue-footed Booby photographed January 2015 at the east of San Cristobal Island, Galapagos.  Canon 5D3, 500F4 1/800 F5.6, iso 800, Av mode, evaluative metering +0.3, handheld.  The east end of San Cristobal Island in the late afternoon is the best place I have found that is publicly available to photograph this species (you don't have to go on a tour to go there, just get a taxi ride).  There are not large numbers there but the sun angle is just perfect in the late afternoon and you can almost always count on a few birds to put on a show.  Add in the beautiful blue waters which match the feet of this species and it makes for some sweet images. At this point the late afternoon light was really starting to fade toward dusk. 

Blue-footed Booby photographed at the east end of San Cristobal Island, January 2016.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1/2000 F5.6, iso 800, manual mode, handheld.  This can also be a good spot to photograph boobies diving and feeding.  In this location I used manual mode as the background changed from gray/blue sky to green trees.  I actually think this shutter speed was a little bit low for this species diving as it's moving so fast. 

Blue-footed Booby photographed at the east end of San Cristobal Island, January 2016.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1/800 F7.1, iso 800, Av mode, evaluative metering at 0, handheld.  This shot was taken about a half an hour after the diving shot, the booby posed nicely in the setting sun before flying off to its evening roost. 

Blue-footed Booby photographed January 2015 at Cerro Brujo Beach, San Cristobal Island, Galapagos.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1/5000 F7.1, iso 640, evaluative metering +0.3, handheld.   Just about any place near water the shore you may find a squadron of diving Blue-footed Boobies and photographing them as they splash down into the water is a lot of fun.  This was a very bright day so the best shots in that situation are almost always top side views such as this one.  Because the color of the light blue sky and water were relatively similar I could get away with being in aperture priority as opposed to manual.  

Blue-footed Booby photographed January 2015 at Cerro Brujo Beach, San Cristobal Island, Galapagos.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1/3200 F7.1, iso 640, evaluative metering +0.3, handheld.  This image was taken a few minutes before the previous image, this is about as close as I got to a booby entering the water, although I photographed many diving sequences.  If I was shooting this now I would definitely go to my 1DX II at 14 frames per second versus the 5D4 at 7 frames per second. 

Blue-footed Booby photographed January 2016 in Puerto Ayora Harbor, Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos.  Canon 5D3 500F4 1/4000 F6.3, manual exposure, handheld from boat.  I photographed this bird as we left the Puerto Ayora Harbor one morning.  This is another good publicly available place to photograph birds, you can walk on some of the piers and you will find many birds feeding and sometimes squadrons of boobies diving.  Shots of birds taking off after they have dove into the water can make compelling images, especially when they are coming straight at the camera such as this time.  

Most nature photographers who visit the Galapagos do so on a photo cruise and while that is certainly a worthwhile way to experience the Galapagos, many people do not realize that on 3 of the islands there are towns with many hotels and restaurants and that there are many accessible good photography areas they can visit just by paying a taxi to drop them off and pick them up.  On our Galapagos photo tours we stay in highly rated lodges on 3 different islands and mix in visits to the best locations on the islands we are staying on with day trips to other nearby islands.  To see this year's tour info see www.trogontours.net/galapagos